The Hungary Little Thief: The Story of Beni Gabor
by Fancypants66
Summary: We all know that Beni Gabor, after having deserted his fellows in the French Foreign Legion, left for civilisation. But how did he do it? How did he live before his eventual return to Hamunaptra three years later?
1. The Battle Was Lost

After the shots ceased and the screams stopped, Beni opened the stone door, seeing no-one, save for the bodies of both Legionnaires (most of whom he felt slightly cheerful about seeing dead) and Tuaregs, and the bodies were starting to be covered in a few flies. Birds that looked like vultures were flying close to the bodies, and the desert was silent. Almost eerie though it was to be surrounded by a dead silence, Beni regained what little composure he had to begin with and walked out slowly from the stone doorway, taking in his surroundings, hoping not to run into any more "savages".1

As he walked out, he noticed that Rick O'Connell was nowhere to be found. O'Connell never seemed very contemptuous, even to people who were their worst to him, but Beni still did not want to risk running into someone he had left to die. What was he feeling for O'Connell? Was it pity? Was it...to blazes with it! O'Connell was always overshadowing him anyway, and even if he *had* survived, O'Connell would, likely as not, be steamed with Beni for closing the door and leaving him to die.2

As Beni kept walking for what seemed like a few hours through the ruins, he began to hear strange sounds coming from the ground and the surrounding statues. What could it be? He'd been sure that nobody was in the ruins and he was moving too deftly to be having heatstroke, so hallucinations were an unlikely thing. But that chanting didn't sound very comforting.3

"I've got to get out of here" Beni said to no-one but his shadow. But how could he do it? If he wandered out into the desert, miles from the nearest glass of (clean) water, he would likely only have but a day-and-a-half before the vultures would get the better of him. Frantically taking in his surroundings, he had noticed something he hadn't before: camels! Maybe God, or Buddha, or Shiva, whichever he felt like thanking most, really *was* smiling down, he felt, and rushed to the herd of putrid-smelling quadrupeds, picking out one or two in case one got tired and he needed another.4

At that moment, before he left the ruins for good, he stopped by the campsite of his fellow Legionnaires, slipping in and out of tents, finding mostly dirty laundry and unwashed socks, but occasionally coming up lucky, finding a watch, a canteen, or even a few stray piastres. Taking his newfound treasures with him, and the folded-up tent of Colonel Guizot himself (which he'd envied since it looked so much roomier than his own), Beni saddled up his camels and headed straight for the exit.5

So he'd not found any treasures while he was there, so what? Nobody else had either, and nobody else was complaining, besides. He was sure he'd find some there next time...


	2. Ocean of Sand and a Swim

Beni had been travelling through the scalding sands for hours, and though a watch that he had pilfered from the campsite was ticking well as an indicator of time, it served little comfort for Beni, who knew that in a place where the sands of the desert stretched on for days, the sands of time were meaningless specks compared to the infinite expanses of the golden-yellow dunes. Water wasn't an issue at the moment, he had plenty of that in the canteens and though it tasted like a rubber band, it was still water and better the wet taste of rubber than the dry taste of sand. As for the camels, they wouldn't need any water whatever.

But still, the sun was baking and the sands were endless. With no-one around that he could speak to and expect some audible response other than a low groan (the camels were groaning and lowing), Beni was more than slightly afraid. Evening began to fall on the desert and the hot coal of a sunny desert day stepped aside, welcoming the snowball of the night. Opening the spacious tent of his former leader, Beni lay down his head for a rest that barely seemed more comfortable than those spent in his own tent. But after sitting on a smelly, large beast under a furnace of a sky, even a night spent sleeping on a thin layer of canvas was welcoming.

A light sleeper by nature, Beni managed to wake early and pull the same trick that they had back in the Legion: to wake up outrageously early in the morning so as to travel on without the savage rays of the desert sun coming down.

The next day seemed scarcely different, as the ride on camels was as endlessly long as could be, but Beni knew that he was approaching some good fortune, for at the middle of the third day on his garrison's trek to Hamunaptra, they had reached the city and set up camp, only to meet ruin a day later. Still...

Another night came and Beni continued his routine: sleeping for but a few hours and travelling on in the wee hours of the morning, until daytime came, and with it another burning heat that could bring the Devil to his knees, but not the skinny little knave from Budapest. The camels kept moving on, and Beni, overcome by the heat and fatigue, finally gave in: as he rode his camel, he grew sleepy, but as he fought to stay awake, he began to realise that he had run out of water and so this sleepy state was unavoidable_...stay awake...no, too thirsty to do it, sleep instead...but you can't do that...._

*****

What seemed like a second later, Beni awoke with a jolt as he felt a cool, blissfully wet feeling against his burned-red face and got to his hands and feet to find himself in water as the camels that had taken him there had lowered their heads to drink, throwing Beni off.

_All this water must be..._

"The NILE!" Beni exclaimed, as he got to his feet, now drenched completely. He whooped and hollered in joy, screaming jaded praises to God, Shiva, Buddha, and all the others as he did a crazed jig that ended once he collapsed face-down in the water, drinking in as much of it as he could once he fell. Beni had made his way for two days through desert and sun, and for that he took as much water to drink as he could, not caring that it was slightly muddy as he stirred it up with his feet. And what the hey, why not?

Beni stripped off his boots and kepi, threw aside his tattered, formerly-white uniform, and jumped into the water, with only his frayed boxers and undershirt on. Being such a skinny little insect of a man, he could move through the water pretty well, and a swim in the Nile after burning in the Sahara was just what the proverbial doctor ordered. Crocodiles be damned.

After a while of swimming and drinking the waters, he raised his head from below the surface to hear a faintly familiar sound in the distance: a horn. A boat's horn: he could make it back, after all! The boat drew closer to where he was, and it was not a bad idea to swim to it. Abandoning his goods along with his camels, Beni swam to the boat, reaching a step-ladder on the side which he hastily climbed, and made sure to hide below in the cargo hold, for who knew what might happen if the crew caught a stowaway? Thieves in these places lost hands, and what would happen to stowaways? Best not to think about it, but rather to hide and wait to reach Cairo, or Alexandria.


	3. Lunchtime and Shopping For Clothes

After some time, tired from his swim and tired from his trek in the desert, tired from...being tired, Beni fell asleep in the cargo hold of the riverboat, selecting a tough, frayed coil of rope and a bag of straw to rest upon, which was scarcely different from sleeping on the hold's floor. It seemed like a moment since he had fallen asleep, but it had apparently lasted well onto the next day. The next day, Beni awoke to hear the sound of a ship's horn outside and the rapid Arabic chattering of dock workers. Quickly shaking his sleep away, Beni scrambled out of sight just as a gaggle of gowned, turbaned crewmen came down the steps. Hiding in a smelly fish barrel, Beni took care not to even breathe as the workers passed the area, because even despite self-preservation, who could even breathe in air in a stinky barrel of fish? The crewmen, conversing in Arabic, took out some ropes and straw, the same straw that Beni had been laying on moments ago, and headed back up the steps, leaving Beni alone once more, and as he crouched in the barrel he suddenly remembered: if the ship's horn was sounding, then the ship must have made port! Every square inch of the vessel would be check from top to bottom and he would be found, hauled off to court, found guilty of desertion and stowage, and carted off to that stink-hole laughingly known as Cairo Prison. With that, Beni looked around, thought quickly, and leapt up out of the barrel, spotting an open porthole, and leaping through it, back into the drink with a loud splash and a squawk. Swimming underwater and to the docks, Beni headed inwards towards the least peopled area of the dock, climbing up a wooden pole that lead to a warehouse filled with straw, horses, donkeys, camels, and several crates, a number of suitcases among them.

It didn't take Beni Gabor long to see that not only was he drenched and barely dressed, much less that he was drenched and barely dressed in a river-port in Giza, and could be found easily. Thinking fast once more, he pried open a suitcase and quickly snatched clothes randomly out of it: a dark shirt and trousers, along with a belt and set of suspenders. Hastily donning the pilfered clothes, Beni hopped out of the crated area barefoot, unknowing that while his new change of clothes fit tolerably and covered him, it was certainly not something typically worn in broad daylight: he had filched a set of pyjamas from a suitcase. But beggars cannot be choosers, nor can impromptu thieves...and yet neither can be too content with only a small amount of potential booty.

Beni wandered the ports and found a shoe and sandal vendor, employing his most valuable of assets: theft. With those sticky fingers of his, those sticky fingers that had landed him in the position of Legionnaire so many years back, he pocketed a set of leather sandals and ran off, no one suspecting a thing. Beni then took a black rag that was used for shoe shining, because of all things needed in this climate, he would certainly need some kind of neckcloth.

As he strode on through the hot sandy ground of Giza, Beni began to look around for a few other things that might serve him use, and found one: a hat. Any desert-goer will say that a hat is always a vital component of one's dress, whether in the desert city or in the sandy plains themselves, a hat is always needed. The hat in question was a native fez, red with no tassel and made of felt. Beni had eyes for no other hat, be it fedora, trilby, bowler or driving cap, just this fez would suffice: in a twinkling, Beni stole the hat before the vender, a surly-looking giant of an Egyptian, could notice.

The final items to be taken were perhaps the most valuable: his icons. Beni knew deep down that if anything could be said of him, it was that he was not exclusively a religious man, but a superstitious one as well. Beni had some feeling in life that he was damned if he did and damned if he did not, so, as he saw it, if he served one god and one faith, he would be tethered down to it, and if that faith and its followers fell, he would go down as well. So, continuing his life as a Jew, he surreptitiously thumbed through the other religions of the world, from Christianity in its many forms to Shinto, Buddhism to Islam, and all the while attending each faith's Sunday services, praying to each god, often raising his head from prayer to see just how many shekels or piastres were in the collection plate while keeping a watch for any witnesses. Taking a cross from a sleeping vagrant, Beni helped himself to a few other icons as well once he had seen a vendor that sold charms, taking one of each symbol that he could find, though his sticky fingers passed their due when he stole not only symbols but a few keys as well, thinking them to be perhaps some obscure cult's icon.

Dressed in this unlikely combination, the little Hungarian set out looking for a place where he could perhaps steal a meal, eyeing a local restaurant with some interest as a piping-hot plate of kushari sat before a prosperous-looking Spanish tourist, who removed his straw-coloured hat, tied a white cloth to his neck, and was about to dig in with an expression of great relish on his moustached face. With more hunger than caution, Beni filched a glass of water from a nearby table and splashed it at the tourist's head. The tourist angrily interrupted his meal and turned around to find whoever threw the water, not knowing that whoever-threw-the-water was already laying his grimy hands on the bread basket and kushari, which he took without the plate (as he was in such a rush that he never thought to take the plate as well. The tourist then arose from his seat to chastise the kitchen staff for the apparent insolence while Beni hightailed it out of there with a basket of bread and a hand dripping with noodles, vegetables and liver before the tourist could even see him. Beni reached an empty alleyway where he sat down on an old crate and licked his already-filthy fingers clean of tomato sauce and vegetables.

Finally, since it was more than his life's worth to steal enough money to gain passage back home (in Budapest, he was a wanted man and always would be), Beni decided that it would be more prudent to reside in Cairo, working whatever jobs he could find until such a time as he could obtain money enough to reach Kőszeg, where he could be as far from Budapest as possible and still be home.

But what job could the little thief possibly hope to obtain? He would have to find out soon, wouldn't he?


	4. Someone I Want You to Meet

It was a lamentable turn of events that caused Beni to see that returning to Hungary was a dangerous luxury: Beni learned by word of mouth and by searching in some old newspapers that Hungary's law would be cracking down even harder, causing police to perform more stringent background checks on the Hungarian citizens of all cities from Budapest itself to Kőszeg, exactly where Beni himself would be bound for. The news left poor Beni stricken with this sorrow at not being able to return home and feeling worse for the wear; Beni's plans were to return to Kőszeg and to start a new life, perhaps obtain a good paying job and maybe even start a family. Perhaps after that, Beni might even return to his family, though after the news that their son was a thief that stole from the synagogues, Elek and Emese Gabor would be less than overjoyed to see their duplicitous son return. After some time had gone by, it didn't matter much to Beni that he could not return, seeing that his dear parents wouldn't care very much for him once he did. In Egypt, then, he would stay, for it was not only a question of money, it was a matter of dishonour on his family.

More than a good two years after his change of clothes, Beni took up employment as a local con-man selling false maps to the inner streets of Cairo that were actually traced off of some mazes he found in some children's book that he stole from a touring French family while they weren't looking. It was fairly steady business but would not exactly pay the bills, seeing as how his new home was the latest in a number of dingy little stinkpots in the worst areas of Cairo. Fortunately, Beni's pick-pocketing skills were a means of obtaining a few trinkets with which to hock for some cash. Beni took a wallet here, a watch there and supplemented his collection by taking the odd bits of jewelry that women were not paying close mind to. Beni's skills at theft outstripped any local thief in Cairo but his prudence left much to be desired: once, for instance, while stealing a golden watch from an Englishman in a cream-coloured jacket as he entered the bar known as the Sultan's Casbah, he almost was caught by the Englishman, who in turn pick-pocketed a drunken, haggard-looking man dressed in rags, instigating a bar fight. Beni was fortunate enough to escape with naught but his life and the recently pilfered watch, but that drunken man (who looked more than a little familiar) almost spotted Beni and lunged after him in the fight before being stopped by two rough-looking Egyptian officers who came to arrest rabble-rousers. Beni's luck was starting to change: that watch, though somewhat worn and faded, might fetch up a modest sum with Faud, the local pawn shop owner who dealt with stolen merchandise, which would result in just enough to buy a one-way ticket out of Egypt entirely!

But for the Americans he would meet soon…for as Beni was running through the streets to avoid detection and to reach the pawn shop, he had heard a familiar word that his had not heard in three years, since his time in the desert: "_Hamunaptra_". Beni snapped to greater attention and wisely concealed himself behind a barrel, where he could eavesdrop with impunity on the source of the almost-taboo word: three Americans on the outdoor tables of a small, plush-looking bar. The Americans, though unarmed, still looked somewhat imposing to Beni: one resembled a cowboy from the motion pictures with a wide-brimmed hat and leather vest, another looked grim in a dark suit and tie as he puffed a cigar and downed his bourbon, and the third was lean and wore a tweed coat and bow-tie, along with thick, wire-rimmed spectacles. These three men were all deeply in conversation about the City of the Dead, but Beni did not know that any others knew about the ruins of Hamunaptra! _These men must either be very smart or very dumb_, Beni mused, as he listened on.

"-don't believe a single word of it; a City of the Dead? Some kiddie's story, nothing more", said the American in the dark suit, as he took a liberal puff of his cigar.

"Daniels, c'mon, hear me out with this, I actually heard it from the Doc himself that—", began the bespectacled American.

"Aw, shut up, Burns, with that 'I-heard-it-from-the-Doc', why even _listen_ to that old nobody?" snapped the cowboy. "His smarts don't count for jack no more since he got hisself kicked out of that museum in New York. I say that-"

"Henderson", the man called Burns started, "hear me out on this. Dr. Chamberlain said it himself from an inside source that someone down at the Cairo Museum has actually found a piece of a map and—"

"Well yeah, but does he _have _the map?" retorted Henderson.

"Not exactly: it was burned, apparently. But—"

"See! Just a big hoax, a fake, a phony, a—"

But just then, the barrel that Beni was hiding behind gave way and Beni tumbled out from behind it, revealing himself to the Americans. The man called Daniels looked livid at Beni's intrusion and whipped out a revolver from his coat pocket, pointing the nose of it directly at Beni's.

"Didn't your momma ever tell you it's rude to be eavesdroppin', boy?", chuckled Henderson from behind Daniels. "You might not like what you hear after"

Beni was left with no remarks to make, just to quiver fearfully for his life and sweat for what seemed like hours. At that point, Beni was left with only one course of action; he would go for broke, he would tell them.

"You-you seek Hamunaptra, don't you?"

"Maybe we do…what's it to ya?" snorted Henderson.

"I could take you to the desert, and—" Beni began, but Daniels, now even more cross than he was a moment ago, rammed the pistol closer to Beni's forehead.

"But what? You plannin' on fightin' words, boy?"

"No, no!", Beni fearfully responded. "I know how to get there, in the desert! I can help you!"

"Oh? Really, now, and free of charge, too, eh?"

"Well," Beni started, attempting desperately to regain his composure, or what he had instead of it, "I was intending to guide you there for a price…modest, truly, _barat'm_, something insubstantial…"

It was Henderson that opened his mouth this time, and this time it looked bleak…

"HAH! I love this guy! A dang pistol to his head and he still has the cojones to ask for money!"

Beni never could comprehend the American vernacular, least of all now where he wore a puzzled expression; perhaps Burns noticed because he stepped in. "Pardon Henderson's French, Mr…"

"Gabor…Beni Gabor, formerly of Budapest, Hungary" Beni simpered.

"Right; well, Mr. Beanie—"

"Beni"

"Yes, that; you say you've been there?"

"Oh, most certainly, barat'm…must have been three years this June" replied Beni.

"Well, Mr. Beni…you say you've been to Hamunaptra, do you? If you have, I have someone I want you to meet…"


End file.
